Fall came in on the wings of a fast mover (the Boeing C17 guys over in Long Beach were doing some delam repair on a B-1 bomber ... took off on full after-burners and did a low, slow flyby ... what a hell of a racket ... every car alarm within 10 blocks went off) anyway temp dropped from an all time August record of 113 F at the beach to 68F and water temps dove from 72F to 58F!

Fun sessions the past few weeks among the frolicking sting rays of breeding season ... some nasty hits. Tony still has an open sore on the side of his foot from a week ago ... nurse, nurse it hurts! My buddy "Bruce" has never had the pleasure ... yet! He trys to keep his feet from touching the bottom ... at all times!

Ruby Tuesday: September 25th

Dawn patrol this morning ... perfect conditions ... very slight offshore wind ... clear, pale blue sky with an orange and yellow sun just peaking over the Sana Anna mountains at 6.15AM. The mixed south and west swells were smaller than yesterday's sometimes overhead sets ... about chest to head high ... but much cleaner ... tide was a little high (if we had had a early morning minus tide with the incoming push of a mid morning high of say 5 feet it would have been epic) but still super.

Just three of us sitting outside of Crabs ... taking off on the other side of the peak, through the bowl to the inside wall. Tom scored an overhead set wave ... deep, no paddle take off ... under the bowl ... racing across the wall in perfect trim on the high line. Bob snagged a clean head high wall and held a perfect cheater five all the way, with the rising sun back lighting the spray. I took off steep & deep on my Super Fish crouched under the bowl and hit the shoulder at max speed ... Tom had just taken off saw me coming and pulled out ... leaving me a perfect wall to set up: smack, smack, smack's off the lip.

The crew sitting inside were impressed ... you guys all get perfect 10's!

Yesterday was bigger and Bruce was king ... taking off on overhead, bumpy shifting peaks and yelling ... watch out coming through!

August:

Yes you can ... nose ride a Fish! Was out surfing the dawn patrol on the sandbar at the San Gabriel river mouth by Seal Beach (Ray Bay) the past week riding my MR design 7'2" "Super Fish". Knee to waist with occasional chest or better set waves ... glassy summer conditions, 70F air ... 70F water.

Tread lightly!

Anyway was doing the short board snap snap pivots coming easy off the bottom and setting up a big smack off the top when a knee high long glass wall popped up across the inside bar ... why not go high, step up and cheater five like my 9' 0" ... yeah it worked!

Once I discovered it would work ... fun fun fun .... of course you can't stay up there as long.

Best wave of the week ... was sitting outside with a couple of buddies by Cuda's (North Wall) when the wave of the day (clean head high peak) rolled through ... party wave .... everyone paddled ... I yelled going left ... Tony who was on the other side went right leaving my buddy River Bob the meat in the sandwich.

Bob took off right ... saw Tony and changed his mind ... my Fish has a tendency to hang high and needs a steeper face to drop in so Bob was already at the bottom of the trough when I dropped down at max speed .... saw him out of the corner of mr eye and launched out and up like a rocket coming up in the perfect spot right under the lip ... a couple of pumps and a big arc cutback as the wave hit deeper water .... Bob was left to get swallowed by white water ...

"Nice bottom turn" he said "was following your track but did'nt quite make the section"!

Hit the water at 5:15 - Still dark. It was a bit bigger than I anticipated, but still not the 4-6 that Surflie.com was hyping. Got two good waves, snapped my leash, and went to get another from the car. When I got back, all of Malibu had arrived, with their friends.

Fortunately, it was breaking outside the rock, so they were more like buoys than competitors. There was one guy on the inside though that didn't seem to understand etiquette (there's always at least one here!). However, he did understand a few buckets of water in the face.

It was good to see a couple other regulars there. It's always nice to surf with guys who know how to lineup and share.

Caught Dean early and surfed all day. Tad had the ski and he was running Guyo Pinto to the boys so we didn't have to paddle in, AN EPIC SESSION. On cane swells like Dean Cannons is super ledgy and you can get super worked, but if Cannon's is maxed then don't worry there are 3 other spots that light up, Sandbritches, Z-flys and A-Bombs so there's plenty of room for everyone. Nice to see this spot get some recognition, very fickle but it goes off when you can catch it. Locals are there really old dudes from way back, very mellow except for Tony C, he's a real prick and will pull your leash and splash water in your face when you go for the big sliders, he's usually down at Sandbritches when it's going off, best to avoid him. Rob is cool though.

It was a really good session: the swell was long but multipeak. The first 45 minutes were very hard because of the strong current. At the hight tide, waves were rippable:I had a very good sessionwith my fish (cut back, re entry, rollers...)

Two weeks without any waves... and yesterday, the swell was back. Nice session. Sand banks were not perfect at all... maybe the Porge or the Grand Crohot are better.Good session with Yann, Loïg, Gabriel (from the UCB1 diving club) and JC.

It was the first real swell of september: long and clean. The problem was that the sandbanks were not optimal... I just take some good ones but after 2 bottom turns, the wave was always closing out which was a little frustating....

Hopefully, I was surfing with a lot of friends: Loig, Chris, Gaby and also Jean-Charles (I haven't see it since 3 years !!)

Was going out here to check the point break with the waves high and the tide going out... didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to... but ended up surfing a good day with head high to over head waves down the beach some.. only a few people out today and it was good... the wind cooperated and kept the waves decently clean... very steep faces and powerful... ate sand once or twice... but kept going back out.. what an experience.. don't think I will go out here again until the winter SW - W swell comes in and makes that right point go off!!

Minus the murky/ shark infested water... this place is beautiful. The locals are cordial but stay out of their way, most of them are on stand up paddle boards and will run your ass over. If you paddle up past the local line up you can catch 200 yard lefts that are critical in some spots and playful in others. Pack a lunch... you are literally in the middle of no where.

Not a great time to go surfing - low tide, but a small peak was working in the middle of Baleal beach.... few people out so no problem getting waves - nice atmosphere with the sea mist and the glassy conditions - just a shame that the peak was poor (sine the tide was wrong.... still, didn't have any choice of when to surf today and was happy with what I got ;-)

Took Andy Irons, Corey Lopez, and Wardo there to shoot for a new film. A little closed out but those guys got some sick barrels and took some hard wipeouts. Andy broke his board, Wardo got the barrel of the day. Corey the air of the day. They really liked the wave. Said if it had a little more of makeable end section that day it would have been one of the sickest wedge peaks ever.

My friend and I had gone to Agate Beach near the head before coming to south beach... the fog was so thick we couldn't really see out to the break...all we could see were the waves pounding the rocks on the inside... so we decided to give the south jetty a try... and what a great time.. no one out there.. the fog was still thick but we could paddle out without hitting anything and could see clean, nice waves coming through. Definitely one of the better days... !!!!

Walked down the beach to find the peak I had surfed the day before... had trouble finding it, as it was so misty. Still, paddelled in and had a small peak to myself, then when a bit warmed up drifted down to the 'main' peak - where there were about 8 people out. Fun session - got a lot of waves - some held a face almost to the beach. Most got too mushy after take-off. Met Nadia in the line up.

It was so misty at times you couldn't see the beach or the waves coming.. just sitting there bobbing around waiting for the sets and chatting. Nice. By 18h30 just the two of us out there, and nice high-tide peak working.

Only about 6 people outon the peak, with very inconsistent mushy waves being blown hrough by a moderate onshore. Still this was preferable to the ultra-soft waves being riden by a zillion longboarders on the south side o Baleal..... Shame to not see Lagide iring, as its clearly a nice peak. Swell is forecast to drop even further the next couple of days... ;-(